Release of Inmarsat data raises more questions than answers

Responding to calls from friends and relatives of those travelling on the missing Malaysian flight MH370, the Malaysian government and British satellite firm Inmarsat have released the data used to determine the path of the plane. The controversy seems to centre on the methodology used in the ‘Doppler’ analysis that ruled out the Northern corridor. That would have put MH370 on a flight path between Thailand and Kazakhstan. There’s also speculation about why 20 employees of chip company Freescale were on that flight.

If MH370 had indeed turned North that could help explain why mobile phones on the plane appeared to be ringing days afterwards – which they wouldn’t have done if the plane had travelled from Indonesia to the Southern Indian Ocean.

The report runs into 47 pages and features the hourly ‘handshakes’ – or network log-on confirmations – after the aircraft disappeared from civilian radar screens on March 8th [2014].

Sarah Bajc, the partner of Phillip Wood who was on the missing flight, told Reuters, “When we first asked for the data it was more than two months ago. I never dreamed it would be such an obstacle to overcome.”

The released data also features details of two ‘telephony calls’ (satellite phone calls) which were initiated from the ground that went unanswered by the plane’s crew.

Bajc revealed that experts on flight tracking who have been advising the families would now be able to analyse the data to see if the search area could be refined.

The report was released partly under pressure from an online petition started by LoriAnn Fehnel on Change.org here.

GoMo News is guessing that could well be the partner of a Freescale employee travelling on that flight.

Curiously, it turns out that Freescale not only makes chips for regular cellular network infrastructure but it also makes them for ‘commercial aerospace’ applications.

Could there be some sort of connexion here, we wonder?

About Tony Dennis

Tony is currently Editor of GoMobile News. He's a veteran telecoms journalist who has previously worked for major printed and online titles. Follow him on Twitter @GoMoTweet.